Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Swiss bankers expect bonuses to
decline further after one in five employees didn’t receive a
performance award in 2012, finews.ch reported.

Seventy-six percent of participants forecast their variable
pay to decline further over the coming five years, up from 55
percent in a 2012 survey, Swiss financial portal finews.ch said
in a statement on its website today, citing a poll of 505
financial-industry employees conducted with Communicators, a
communications agency. It didn’t give a margin of error or a
date for the survey. Forty-seven percent of respondents forecast
a decline in fixed salaries by 2018.

Switzerland employs almost 200,000 people in an industry
roiled by allegations wealth managers helped offshore clients
dodge taxes. Hundreds of banks could be covered by an accord
between the U.S. and Switzerland over how to punish firms that
used secret accounts to help American clients evade the Internal
Revenue Service, the U.S. said on Aug. 29. Some banks face
penalties of as much as 50 percent of the value of those assets.

Swiss workers looking for a career in the financial
industry will find the best opportunities in the legal and
compliance departments, according to 75 percent of respondents
in the survey. Fifty-one percent of respondents said working in
asset management with institutional investors such as pension
funds is an “attractive option.”